Chucknjoni's Blog

Well we're back in the States at a cute little nudist club called  Sunnier Palms , on New Years morn. We'd reserved an RV site here for New Years Eve since the club is close to our favorite beach, Blind Creek in Ft. Pierce and it is on the way back to Cypress from Miami. Really friendly folks here, went out of their way to squeeze us in on a busy holiday. They had a party but we just wanted to relax in our Pleasureway! Monday was our last day on Grand Turk  and it involved packing, schlepping all of us to the airport (1 mile away!) and then waiting 2 hours for our late-to-arrive puddle jumper to Provo where the big planes land. At least check in was easy in Grand Turk, they have a beautiful little airport, all decorated for Christmas and totally air conditioned.  Of course we got to Provo way late and AGAIN had to run around just to make the flight.  Lesson no. 101, NEVER allow less than 2 hours for an international connection in an island airport (or anywhere over...

So we're on the downside of this trip, last day in Grand Turk. Last night for dinner we moseyed down to the Bird Cage restaurant at the Osprey Resort, just a short walk on the beach. They were expecting us, had great island dinner offerings (e.g. ribs and chicken, rice and beans, etc) accompanied by Turks Head Brewery beers or rum punches (Shirley Temples for the kids) and were home in time for the Ohio State- Clemson game. Am sure glad I passed out before half time (no offense, Sherry!) That's Smiley playing some soothing island dinner music. Here's a "Beach Bouquet" that I collected in just a short walk on the beach this morning. Conchs and beach glass everywhere! Katie sitting on the beach and watching the one cruise ship coming in today. Two things planned for today, our last day in Turks and Caicos. Lori, Katie and Caitlin signed up for massages on Katie's patio.  And later we would go to the cruise ship center, via Chuck the taxi driv...

The day of our anniversary started with a nice rainbow, ended with a gorgeous sunset and in between our family treated Joni and me to a wonderful party in honor of the day. Here's the rainbow in the morning, as usual a photo doesn't do it justice. That's Red our adopted house dog. The family went on a boat trip as I mentioned earlier. 10 of them fit into this taxi van. Nice thing about this small island is that nothing is more that a couple of miles away. Joni and I stayed home and enjoyed each  other's company.  We did make a quick run in our Suzuki to one of the little grocery stores just a mile away, restocked our supplies of drinking water and candy mints, and on the way home dropped into the Grand Turk Liquor store to buy some more rum- not at all cheap here like it is in St. Martin. There was a small rhubarb going on with the locals hanging out there, seems one of them wanted to buy a 6 pack and the minimum is a case- sounds like Pennsylvania's arc...

Paradise or not, things can go haywire- no news there.  But twice in one week?! So last week in St. Martin I tripped on a concrete step that I couldn't see because I was carrying cushions.  I fell and strained my shoulder or pulled a muscle or tendon, something like that. It was just getting a little better until last night here on Grand Turk when someone (me) had the bright idea of having a bonfire on the beach!  Here: No neighbors nearby, lots of open beach, dark starry night, enough driftwood, so why not? Only problem was the dang coral rocks that look just like sand in the dark even with a flashlight. I was actually the 3rd guy to smash a toe after grandson Ben and son-in-law Herman, all of us either coming to or going from the fire- which didn't burn well anyway! I also tripped and fell again, aggravating my sore shoulder! So here I sit on Joni's and my 50th anniversary day, nursing a scalped toe and painful shoulder while the rest of the family is out on a boati...

After a quick overnight at Miami Airport (Hampton Inn East where our RV is parked), we hopped on a plane to Providenciales airport, Turks and Caicos. Then the fun began. 4 big planes from the states beat us there. Our plane was late in leaving due in part to torrential rains in the area the night before (up to 12"!).  Our family were coming in from Charlotte, also delayed a bit.  We allowed 2 hours for the connection in Provo, taking a puddle jumper to Grand Turk. Not good- between the late arrivals (us 10 min ahead of family) and not one, not two, not three but FOUR lines to get through, we made the plane by 10 minutes to spare and only because it was late departing.  Lots of running around and begging the InterCaribbean Airways people to check us in instantly! We forgot that we have to go through long lines entering a foreign country. Anyway, all 12 of us made it onto the 24 (or so) passenger plane and took the 20 min hop over to the little airport on Grand Turk....

Because several folks have asked for our opinions, we took a stab at comparing the 3 naturist-friendly accommodations that we stayed in near Orient Beach (OB) for our 50th Anniversary trip to St. Martin, 12-22 Dec, 2019. Of course these criteria  and rankings are totally subjective, based on our personal whims, likes, etc. I should preface this with the statement that all 3 of these places are VERY nice and we would not hesitate to stay in any one of them again for a week or more at a time. Our rankings  are based on very slight differences for us, excepting the view. I guess a 4th contender should have been mentioned i,.e. a private villa. There are lots of them from what I see in the forums, many with private enough pools that could render the place naturist-friendly. We had our eyes on several but in the end wanted to be pampered on our 50th. Might do a villa next time if we go with friends, for example. There were few or no other guests besides us at all 3 places, q...

We thought Residence Adam and Eve was really nice. Manon is a young French gal who is sort of the day manager there.  She was fun to talk to and practice our French on; she  came over from France a couple of months ago. She is in charge of  breakfast and made us some good ones.  Crepes with ham, egg, cheese the first day, crepe and jelly (eggs were bad) for day 2, eggs and toast for day 3, yogurt all 3 days. Alors, pas de fruite save bananas on Sunday. It was so relaxing sitting by the pool but the water was a bit cool.  The hot tub was perfect for day 2&3. We met  Janet and Jorge,  nice guests from Miami, first timers in SXM so we could impress with our island knowledge.  They are rum and wine  connoisseurs , may visit us at Cypress. OB was really windy on Friday, we didn't stay long. and very few people there.  We thought about heading over to Happy Bay where we used to go in years past to escape the wind but with the strike...